


The Moon is a Loyal Companion

by enquiring_angel (Rouge_Angle)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, scheming and manipulation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-23 02:48:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30048777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rouge_Angle/pseuds/enquiring_angel
Summary: 'Even if the seal placed on Nagato’s heart had not completely stopped him from misusing the jutsu, it had still brought Madara back along with whoever else.' Madara comes back from the dead much sooner than in canon. Obito struggles to adjust.(Or, I said to myself, "Is it possible to have canon Madara/Obito where they are both adults, and no one is a zombie or missing their legs?" I don't know yet, but I aim to find out.)
Relationships: Uchiha Madara & Uchiha Obito, Uchiha Madara/Uchiha Obito, past Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this looks familiar to you, you aren't imagining it. A version of this was posted under my other pseud but I left the fandom and deleted it rather than leave it hanging unfinished. I'm back now

_The moon is a loyal companion._   
_It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human._   
_Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections._

\- Tahereh Mafi, _Shatter Me_

* * *

Darkness, crushing and absolute. He gasped for breath, but the air offered no relief - too musty and when he breathed out he could feel the warmth of his own exhale come back to hit him in the face. He tried to open his eyes and felt his eyelids flutter ineffectually, lashes catching and tucking under the rim of his lower eyelid. His hands came up, caught against stone. He pushed and found it unyielding. He was trapped. For a few seconds there was nothing but blind panic, the stupid fear of a trapped animal, suffocating in its own terror. But only for a few seconds.

The rock shattered under his jutsu like a clap of thunder, debris clattering and dust choking his already deprived lungs. Dizzy, he stumbled out of the wreckage, coughing, and groped his way through the blackness until his hands hit more stone. He panted for breath, resting his cheek on the cool rock while he collected his thoughts and puts the shameful episode behind him. 

He’d died…hadn’t he? Yes, that’s right – and not for the first time. And just like last time, he didn’t remember anything about being dead, or any kind of afterlife. He’d been unable to carry on by himself, so he’d left his name and his Will to the boy – to Obito – with instructions to revive him when the time was right…

 _The little shit might have had the courtesy to dig me up from wherever he buried me first_ , Madara thought, faintly disgruntled. He’d be more annoyed about it if he didn’t feel so damn _good_.

When he ( _killed himself_ ) died, everything had hurt. Everything had been hurting for decades before that. If anyone had told him as a young man that he would live long enough to suffer the various indignities of severe old age, he would’ve assumed that they’d had too much poppy milk in the medical tent. He could never have imagined the state he’d been reduced to: a husk using the Gedō Mazō to cling to life, too old and weak and frail to accomplish anything.

He certainly wasn’t old and weak and frail now. Madara ran a hand down his chest, feeling planes of lithe, toned muscle beneath the shapeless, half-rotted fabric of his burial robe. His fingers caught on a knot of scar tissue over his heart and lingered there a moment, before feeling along his bicep. He clenched his fingers, forming and reforming a fist. He felt young. He felt _strong_.

It was a shame he had no eyes. He brought a hand up to touch his eyelids and found them sunken in, the skin unpleasantly soft and giving to the touch.

Well, only a minor setback. If Obito had any sense, he would have kept a few spare Sharingan around. And speaking of Obito…

_He’s here._

Madara sensed him, the way that he sensed that he was in the tunnels beneath the Mountains’ Graveyard as soon as he calmed down, and the way he sensed several of Zetsu’s many clones burrowing down through layers of rock to come and investigate the commotion he made when he blasted the wall open. They’ve never felt similar enough to Hashirama to be confusing, even if they were made from his cells. Even wood clones had felt more like the real thing than they ever could. He straightened up and turned his sightless gaze towards where he could feel them erupting out of the earth like extremely talkative daisies.

“Madara-sama! Madara-sama! Madara-sama!” several of them chorused.

“You’re alive!” another one chimed in.

“And not old and crusty! Who knew you could look so good?” The one with the swirly face always did have a more distinctive personality than the others. And more combat power to boot.

If he had eyes right now, he would roll them. “Still wagging I see.” He’d named the lot of them ‘tongue’ for a reason. Years spent in their company had taught him that killing them for being irritating was a waste of both time and resources. That didn’t mean it wasn’t tempting right now though.

“But you don’t actually have any eyes, so I’m not sure how you…wait. I don’t have any eyes either so how do I—?”

Madara tuned all of them out, attention focused past them to where he could feel the flame of Obito’s chakra approaching. Taking its time, not using Kamui to warp through space. Another presence rose up out of the floor, diverting his attention from his successor’s descent.

“ ** _Madara-sama_** ,” Black Zetsu rasped in greeting. _“ **We are simply** —”_

“Overjoyed!” White Zetsu’s original cut in.

“— ** _to have you back at last_**.”

“Your robe Madara-sama, let me…”

He shrugged off the mildewed rags, silently relieved to be distanced from the smell, and was just buttoning himself into some kind of cloak that White Zetsu took off and gave to him, when Obito arrived.

“Oh, Tobi is here,” White Zetsu said unnecessarily.

“Idiot! _I’m_ Tobi,” the swirl-faced Zetsu, Tobi, announced pompously. “How can he be Tobi?”

**_“Shut up, fool.”_ **

Obito’s footsteps drew near, soft and deliberate in the way of one shinobi deliberately making themselves known to another. “Leave us,” he commanded, and the timbre of his voice took Madara by surprise, though he’s not sure why it should. Obito had been a boy when he died. The person he could feel standing in front of him now, was a man.

The Zetsu depart, their bickers fading away into the earth along with them. The black one was the last to leave, and did so only at Madara’s instruction. They were left alone.

There was a faint rustle of fabric, like someone crossing their arms. “Hmph. That was a very dramatic way to make an entrance. So typical of you. You’re lucky you didn’t bring the entire tunnel down on your head.” The tone of Obito’s voice made him sound as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

“Needs must,” Madara replied, fumbling with the toggles of the cloak and trying not to be too obvious about it. He was out of practice at using fine motor skills while blind. “Or I would have suffocated in that tomb you left me walled up in. Your pre-planning leaves something to be desired.”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Obito admitted, after a grudging pause.

“No? How long has it been? Quite some time, from the sound of you. But things are still not ready.” It wasn’t a question. But Obito surely had a good reason, for deviating from the plans he’d laid out.

(He had better.)

“There have been complications. Nagato betrayed us.” Obito’s chakra flared briefly, an ember ready to erupt into a blaze. “He thought it would be a marvellous idea to sacrifice himself in order to resurrect half the population of Konoha,” he said, tone cold and scathing.

There was certainly a story there, and one that would be worth hearing when more pressing concerns had been attended to. Madara’s expression twisted with annoyance. “Tsk. You can’t rely on anyone these days. Good thing I had a failsafe in place.” Even if the seal placed on Nagato’s heart had not completely stopped him from misusing the jutsu, it had still brought Madara back along with whoever else. “You retrieved my eyes, though?” he asked, feeling confident in the answer.

The prolonged silence that followed his question was not reassuring. “Not yet.” Obito sounded as if the words had been dragged from him against his will.

Madara’s heartbeat roared in his ears, his chakra churning in his core like magma before an eruption. “Where is the Rinnegan, Obito?” His voice was far too calm. He knew from the outset that placing the Rinnegan with a pawn was a very risky move, so he’d arranged to have the red-haired child watched constantly by a network of Zetsu. And had he not explained to Obito, at great length, just how important those eyes were? If his successor had gone and fucking _lost_ them—

“Oh, _relax_ ,” the younger Uchiha snapped, sounding as if he’d completely failed to take his own advice. “They’re still in that moron’s skull where you left them. Konan has the body – but there’s no chance she’ll do anything to it before I’ve tracked her down.”

He didn’t bother to ask who this Konan was. “What makes you think she won’t?” Madara demanded. “ _Everything_ depends on the Rinnegan, it’s not something you can afford to be flippant about.”

Obito made a derisive noise, proving very much that being a brat wasn’t something one simply grew out of. “I don’t need you to tell me that, thanks. And I don’t think anything - I _know_ she won’t do anything to desecrate the body of her oh-so precious friend. The two of them have spent the past sixteen years living with the corpse of their other beloved childhood friend, so the likelihood of her showing the good sense to destroy any part of Nagato’s body is pretty slim.” Madara imagined his face must have reflected some of his puzzled revulsion, because Obito let out a gusty sigh and elaborated. “They used their friend’s body as Nagato’s Deva Path.”

Right. Brushing aside the unimportant fact, Madara got right back to the point. “Then our priority is to track her down and get them back, isn’t it?” His lips stretched into a humourless parody of a smile. “Not sitting around here.” He was aware that he was goading Obito purely for the sake of it. Some part of him hoped Obito would be stupid enough to attack him; it would be interesting to see how his Kamui had developed over the years. Though at the moment their match would hardly be a fair one, not with him blind and Obito possessing a Mangekyō Sharingan – and a rather powerful one at that. Fortunately, Madara didn’t care about fair play, and Obito’s heart was covered with lines of ink and chakra to prove it.

“I was working on it,” Obito said, managing somehow to make every word sound like ‘ _Fuck you, die a painful death’_ instead. “Before you made your dramatic entrance.”

“Hmm, you can tell me about it.” Madara extended his senses outwards, letting his chakra bounce against the walls like a bat’s echolocation, and began following the twisting tunnels towards his old laboratory. He assumed Obito had no reason to move it elsewhere. “But first, I need some eyes. I take it you have some good spares sitting around?”

“Oh, there’s plenty,” Obito agreed. “I’ll tell you about that as well. After your transplant – I’ll go on ahead.” There was a rush of air close by and Obito’s chakra spiked, then faded away out of existence.

Once he was gone, Madara paused and dropped his focus on the web of tunnels, turning his attention inwards instead. In his mind was a thread-like connection that had sat unused since the day he died. He plucked at it as if strumming a stringed instrument, and awaited the response. It came almost immediately.

**_‘Yes, Madara-sama?’_ **

Black Zetsu left them as he ordered, but his presence was not too far away. ‘ _He said it’s been sixteen years?’_

**_‘Yes.’_ **

_‘And how many bijuu do we currently have?’_

**_‘Tails one through seven, all sealed up inside the Ged_** **_ō Maz_ ** **_ō’._ **

Madara made a sound of frustration. ‘ _Why’s it taken him so long?’_ Obito may not have his strength, but he had not lacked for potential. He wouldn’t have chosen him, trusted in him, otherwise. Even doing things in a less open way, as he’d become accustomed to in his later years, he still wouldn’t have expected it to take all that time to round up the bijuu.

**' _The Sanbi was destroyed when the Hatake boy killed Nohara Rin. Then again when its next jinchuuriki, the Fourth Mizukage, was killed during a coup. It only reformed for the second time quite recently. Obito went along personally to make sure nothing could happen to it again.'_ **

Yes, that would go some way towards explaining it. He’d made the decision to have his men in Kirigakure seal the Sanbi into the girl because even if his plan to turn Obito failed, there was always a chance the beast would rampage through Konoha and flatten it. Weakened as they were by the Third Shinobi War, such an attack would’ve kept the village out of his way for some time, and made it easier to snatch the Kyuubi. At the time he didn’t have need for the Sanbi itself, but perhaps this was an oversight on his part.

Still, even if Obito had taken a long time to lay the groundwork, and even if some variables escaped his control, he didn’t believe he made a bad choice with Obito. Black Zetsu seemed to think along the same lines too. **_‘His deviations from the basic plan have been of little consequence. He still desires the completion of the Infinite Tsukuyomi more than anything else. Uchiha Obito has played his part well.’_**

A smile stretched across Madara’s face as he dropped the connection with the living extension of his will. Obito’s failure to finish things off was irrelevant. Truthfully, it was better this way.

Madara would finish clearing the path to the future himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you liked it and/or if there was anything in particular you enjoyed. Another chapter is forthcoming and it will be longer than this one!


	2. Chapter 2

God’s absence had already been noticed. It was only four days since Nagato’s death, and the clouds over Amegakure had stopped crying, likely at the moment his heart had stopped. As citizens used to a sky in permanent mourning, the sudden lack of rain had the populace on edge. Despite the insistence of the village’s top _jōnin_ that there was no cause for alarm, the villagers came to the foot of Pain’s tower in droves. They knelt on the drying stone of the streets; they knelt in puddles glistening with oily rainbows, their hands clasped in prayer. Shrines to their missing god sprang up in the streets around the tower like mushrooms. The _jōnin_ cleared away these idolatrous images at first; Pain-sama had not deserted them and He would soon return, and to suggest otherwise was blasphemy. But despite their best efforts there was always someone who managed to sneak around the guard rotas to set up another graven image, another burning candle ringed with paper flowers. All of them placed beneath a waxed umbrella, to shelter these offerings of the faithful from when the rains inevitably returned.

Movement through the village was much simpler without Nagato’s rain. The constant downpour was Amegakure’s main defence, a disturbance in its fall a sign that all was not well. Obito became used to allowing the rain to slip through his body with Kamui whenever he had to be outside here. Now he was able to walk as all men walk, rooted to the earth, listening for news of the missing divinities. He made his way through the winding streets unnoticed, keeping one ear on the shinobi, the other one the fishmongers and street vendors, on those who ferried the civilians along the canals. His hooded, cloaked shape drew no attention; he was just one more man waiting for the heavens to open.

Konan would be foolish to return here after betraying the Akatsuki, and Obito knew she wasn’t stupid. She was however, sentimental. Even more sentimental than he would’ve guessed, from what Zetsu had told him. He couldn’t understand what some loud-mouthed kid could possibly have to say that could wipe out decades of sincere conviction in the space of a single conversation. Nagato and Konan had been utterly dedicated to their false vision of the cause. If he met Uzumaki Naruto again, perhaps he would ask him before he ripped the kyuubi out.

He turned down an alleyway and used Kamui to teleport to the top of Pain’s tower, materialising on the tongue-shaped balcony. The place was deserted, and aside from a few trap jutsu that passed harmlessly through him, curiously unguarded. He tore the place apart systematically, room by room, cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer. Nothing. Not so much as a hint to where she might have absconded to, but he wasn’t really expecting there to be. He would have to return to face Madara empty-handed. Again.

Grimacing, Obito changed the trajectory of his space-time ninjutsu and teleported elsewhere.

His world shrunk down to a pinprick of black void and expanded again, into open air and sunlight. For the first time in several years, Obito removed his mask and let its warmth touch his face. He blinked several times, his left Sharingan adjusting after being kept covered for so long. The world opened up after being narrowed down to the depth and breadth of a single eye, unveiling a view that complimented that of his right eye: criss-crossing webs of chakra from the distant forest, flocks of birds like bright embers, the faint glow from the mosses growing on top of Hashirama’s stone head. Below, the river glimmered with the silvery chakra suffusing its current and tumbled over the edge in a sparkling waterfall down to the lake below.

The Valley of the End.

Obito had come here many times over the years. The spot itself was relatively secluded and didn’t see much in the way of travellers, especially not since Orochimaru had conquered the neighbouring country. The waterfall, nature’s white noise, provided an excellent place to be alone with his thoughts. And of course, there was personal significance to take into account. This is where he – where _Madara_ – had died.

Obito had only ever seen the fight that did it in snatches inside Madara’s genjutsu, never the clear blow-by-blow he’d been treated to on other occasions. He remembered asking how it had happened.

“He stabbed me in the back.” Obito could’ve hardly failed to pick up an implied double-meaning in the curt reply. Madara’s illusionary self looked like a young man—the first thing Madara always did when they went into the genjutsu, was to return himself to his glory days—but in that moment, Obito could see his true age showing through. For someone who manipulated others so much, Madara had always seemed quite bad at hiding his own feelings. It was like he didn’t know how to act, or simply didn’t bother.

Acting was an important shinobi skill, and one that Obito had mastered completely. He lived his roles, never setting aside his mask or wiping off his character until the play was over. (The play was never really over.) There were those still alive—old and decrepit though they might be—who could possibly remember Madara, and Obito had always been determined that no one should uncover the ruse. So he taught himself his part well. He became Madara so thoroughly that he didn’t need to convince anyone of his identity, because sometimes even _he_ believed it.

He wasn’t sure now, exactly who he believed he was.

Madara was he who denied this world, he who sought to create a new world of peace. The mantle of Madara had been passed onto him, who shared the same ideals. He’d used other names, other personas – borrowing Tobi’s obfuscating stupidity – but he had never needed to be anyone else, not in all these years.

But it was very difficult now, with Uchiha Madara present in the flesh, to think of him as an ideology rather than a separate person. They might share the same dream, walk the same path, but how could _he_ be Madara, when Madara was so obviously _there?_ Even right now, he stood across from Obito carved in stone, poised and ready for battle.

The ugly truth of it was, that it could only be one of them in the end, couldn’t it? Only one of them could be the juubi jinchuuriki, only one of them could cast his Rinnegan on the moon, only one of them could be the Saviour. And as things stood right now, it wouldn’t be him. He had worked for all these years, he had worked so hard so that he could make a world where things were as they were supposed to be: where Rin was alive and where Kakashi didn’t kill himself off piece by piece in the name of being a good shinobi, and where Minato was there when he needed to be and where Uchiha Obito grew up with a family and his world was whole and full of happiness. He had schemed and toiled and murdered and bled for his dream, and Madara would try and swoop in at the final leg of the race and overtake him.

Well. Obito’s scars stretched as he bared his teeth in a grin. _Fuck. That_.

* * *

He lingered by the waterfall as the sun rose higher overhead, considering who it was that he needed to become. A clear answer was not forthcoming, but by the time he returned to the Mountains’ Graveyard, Obito felt a bit clearer about who he _wasn’t._ Which was something at least.

It was sunny here too, blazing overhead like a scornful eye. He hadn’t bothered to put his mask back on (who was there to fool out here? No one but himself) and the side of his face made up of Senju Hashirama’s DNA soaked up the light greedily. The dirt beneath Obito’s feet was hard as a rock and cracking, patched with yellow mosses. The mountains were a riot of green this time of year, with trees to rival Fire Country redwoods in size and a thick carpet of undergrowth. Maybe it was familiarity as much as convenience that had played a part in Madara choosing this place as a hideout.

He found Madara by the tunnel mouth, squinting out beyond the cage of giant animal bones and into the sunlight. He’d taken the bandages off already; thanks to the increased healing capabilities granted to those who possessed Hashirama’s cells it was probably fine, but his borrowed eyes would still be sensitive to bright light. He’d been practically champing at the bit to get outside ever since Obito had lain down the surgical implements and declared that the procedure was complete. Obito supposed he couldn’t really blame him for being impatient. He wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been since Madara had been able to leave the cavern where Obito first met him, but judging by the man’s unnaturally great age at the time, he would bet at least a few decades. All those years down in the dark with no one but Zetsu, and the voices of his own dreams to talk to. No wonder he was cracked.

Madara wasn’t looking at him as he drew near, but just stood leaning against the rib of some long-dead creature with his arms folded, his gaze seeking out some point in the distance. His Sharingan were spinning, pupils flickering from each spark of chakra that flapped or crawled or snuffled its way through the forest. As Obito got near enough, he noticed that Madara’s eyes were very red. Unusually red, that is, shot through with little capillaries, and swollen around the lids. They reminded him of the way a Mangekyō Sharingan looked, right before it started bleeding.

“Tsk. You’re so impatient,” Obito said, meeting Madara’s eyes properly for the first time in sixteen years. Actually, meeting his _eyes_ properly for the first time at all. He’d only had one, back then when Obito had been a child. A smirk tugged at his lips. “Like a kid with a new toy. It wouldn’t have killed you to wait a little longer.”

Madara held his gaze and made a dismissive sound. “The only brat here is you.” His Sharingan ran over Obito, now able to actually observe the changes to his successor for the first time. “Even if you are taller now.”

He was taller than Madara by about a handbreadth actually, maybe a little more. “Yet you’re the one risking a return to blindness by being overhasty.”

“Careful now.” Madara’s bloodshot gaze locked onto his, Sharingan pair to Sharingan pair, as if preparing to exchange a battle of genjutsu. “You sound almost concerned.”

Obito rolled his eyes. “My concern is that _you_ are wasting _my_ resources with your carelessness. Sharingan are limited in supply these days you know. But whatever, blind yourself.” He stepped under the barred shadow made by the giant ribcage and started walking down the tunnel.

“Definitely still a brat, even after all these years,” Madara remarked as Obito drew level with him. “I never imagined it would take you so long to accomplish so little.”

Obito stopped in his tracks, fingers twitching with the aborted urge to grab Madara by the throat, slam him against that bone and _squeeze_ it until his face turned blue. He refrained. Madara was baiting him on purpose. _Probably looking for an excuse to play with his new Sharingan._ It was stupid of him to play against a Mangekyō but then again there was always _that_ , wasn’t there. His leash. He wondered if Madara realised he’d discovered it long ago, back when there were times his conviction wavered. Back when there were times it could all get a bit much, and opening his veins or stretching his own neck seemed like a good idea.

He snorted and kept walking. “Remind me again, how many decades were you rotting away in this cave able to do nothing but sit around polishing your scythe?” He glanced behind him and saw the way Madara’s mouth had flattened back into a grim line. Obito made himself incorporeal, just in case.

“So you failed to find the Rinnegan,” Madara said, expression chilly. “How hard can it be track down one wretched woman?” He turned away from the light and fell into step alongside Obito. “I thought the point of those rings—” he gestured at the one Obito was wearing on his left thumb “—was to enable you to track down your subordinates if they betrayed you.”

“Mm. There are ways around it though.” Obito thought of Orochimaru and his severed hand, bodies cast off like old skins. “Konan would know; she helped to create them in the first place.” The rings had been an aid to directing the Jinchuuriki’s chakra into the Gedō Mazō more than anything else. Without them, an already lengthy process would’ve taken even longer. But they were not as important as some members had been led to believe.

“A foolish oversight,” Madara declared, tone scathing. He brushed some hair out of his face, fingers catching on a tangle. “But it can’t be helped now. You remain confident she won’t damage them?”

This was the eleventh time Madara had asked him this exact question. As irritating as this may have been, Obito understood his anxiety about the matter quite well. “I’m sure. Once we find where she’s slunk off to, I’ll attend to it personally,” he promised. “I will get the Rinnegan back.”

“We’ll attend to it personally,” Madara corrected him. “I’ll be coming along.”

That was something he’d have to try and get around closer to the time, Obito reflected. For now he needed to keep Madara’s trust.

Silence fell between them, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. They had never been much for idle chatter. Even when they were training in an illusory world of Madara’s own making and time meant nothing, there had always been a point to what they were discussing, something that linked back to the Moon’s Eye Plan and made it relevant. Which was why Madara’s next words came as a bit of a shock:

“I need clothes.”

Obito was a shinobi, and a good one; his step didn’t falter, nor did he stop and give Madara an incredulous look for this seemingly random statement. “Clothes?” he echoed, raising an eyebrow.

Yes Obito, _clothes_ ,” Madara repeated himself in a tone that suggested he thought Obito was soft in the head. “Garments. Things you wear. While this provides for basic decency—” he plucked at the front of Akatsuki robe lent to him by Zetsu— “It’s not exactly practical.”

“Forgive me, I was under the impression we had more important concerns than your tailoring,” Obito sniped, but supposed that it was a reasonable enough request. “Whatever. I’ll find something for you.”

Obito’s personal room was not very personal. It was a chamber hewn from the stone, hidden behind layers of genjutsu and a seal that required a drop of his own blood to make the stone covering the entryway roll back. Normally he just walked through it using his Kamui. Today he took off his left glove and bit the pad of his thumb pressing the small wound against the seal.

Inside was a bed with a frame he grew years ago using the Mokuton that he hardly ever slept in. Weapons hung on the walls, including the kusarigama that had once belonged to Madara, and his battle fan. “I suppose you can take those back, since they’re yours,” he commented, while he thought of it. As far as personal effects went, he had very few; a couple of spare masks, including the one he wore when he set the nine-tails on Konoha. There was a crack in it, but he hadn’t bothered to throw it away. His clothing was folded into a wooden chest, and consisted of only a handful of outfits. The light purple outfit with the red and white crest of the Uchiha clan embroidered on it caught his eye, but no. They were still being discreet at this point.

He selected a pair of black pants and a long, tunic-like shirt of the kind Madara (and by extension, himself) favoured. He tossed leg bandages and a pair of gloves on top as an afterthought. He threw the pile at Madara. “There. Clothes.”

Madara, who had been running a finger along the sickle blade of the kusarigama to test its sharpness, turned and snatched the clothes out of the air before they could smack him in the face. Then, dropping them on the floor, he began to unfasten the Akatsuki cloak. It was at this point that Obito realised he wasn’t wearing the decaying robe he’d been buried in beneath it. In fact, he wasn’t wearing _anything_ beneath it.

It was nothing of consequence – only a body. Everyone had one. Nudity was nothing remarkable. Yet somehow, Obito found himself staring at that pale skin, still marked in places with the scars of Madara’s original life, those lean muscles, the wild dark hair that trailed down from his navel to—

Obito snapped out of it and wrenched his gaze upwards to the patch of milk-pale scar tissue over Madara’s heart. The mark of the Shodai Hokage’s killing blow. That was better to look at. Maybe he would strike his own blow against Madara in the same spot.

“Do you have shoes too?” Madara asked him, getting dressed as nonchalantly as if they were at the bathhouse together and he’d just asked Obito to pass him a towel. He tugged the top on over his head, covering the mark on his chest. He frowned slightly at the way the sleeves hung down over the backs of his hands. The pants were too long as well.

The question snapped him out of his intense study of Madara, who appeared not to have noticed the scrutiny. “Somewhere,” he said, and busied himself digging back through his meagre effects to look for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feed an author, leave a comment :D


End file.
